A Seaworthy Solution?
Libertarians may be dubious about global warming, but they seem to be in agreement that ocean fisheries are nearing collapse. The mothership is not one to sound the foghorn on anything related to the environment, so this passage over at Hit & Run caught my eye:
Overfishing threatens to destroy most of the world’s fisheries within a matter of decades. But while it’s proven difficult to save the gulf or save the whales, we know how to save the fish: Stop treating the ocean like a public bathroom, says Christopher Costello, a professor of natural resource economics at UC Santa Barbara.
The post goes on to laud a market solution that is also heralded by the Environmental Defense Fund.
Readers in the comment thread are on board with both the threat to the oceans and the suggested fix, though some can’t resist taking potshots at environmentalists for their “latent socialism.” It seems every group talks in caricatures.
Libertarians discussing discussing intervention in reaction to what is essentially a market failure (technically the specific case known as the tragedy of the commons) … I’d be expecting some heads to “asplode”, but instead, I see the commentary referring to the proposed solution as “privatization”. What? Who is going to enforce the share limits – a private police force for the whole ocean?